The present invention relates to a collapsible spiral-tube escape way, and more particularly to an escape way formed from a plurality of serially connected spiral-tube units separately supported on tube-supporting frames via vertical and horizontal suspension lines. The spiral-tube units are automatically extended and collapsed when the tube-supporting frames are moved into an operating and a standby position, respectively. The tube-supporting frames in the standby position are either fully elevated to stack on a roof of a building or separately pivotally lifted to flatly attach to outside of exits of the building. In an emergency, the tube-supporting frames are either vertically lowered to connect to the exits or pivotally tilted down to a horizontal position. In either case, users at different floors could easily enter into the spiral-tube escape way via the exits of the building and slide all the way down to the ground. The collapsible spiral-tube escape way of the present invention in the standby position is collapsed and does not occupy any indoor space, and is ready for use in an emergency to ensure life safety of users in the building.
The quickly increased number of high-rise buildings and the exploded population result in increased number of fires. Incomplete public facilities and escape apparatus would worsen damages in fires. Currently, there are many types of escape apparatus for use in fires, such as fixed escape ladders, lowering ropes, fire baskets, rescue bags, vertical-type conveyors, spiral ladders, ladder trucks, etc. All these conventional escape apparatus have their respective drawbacks. For example, the conventional escape ladders do not enable users to quickly run away from the site on fire and panic people tend to jam the ladders, the conventional lowering ropes are not convenient for carry and could be used by only one person each time, the fire baskets take time to reciprocate between the fire site in a building and the ground, the rescue bags are useless in the case of fires occurred at higher floors, the injured or patients on the vertical conveyors are subject to the danger of falling to the ground, the fixed spiral ladders occupy too much room and are only suitable for buildings having sufficient space, and the ladder trucks are not sufficiently mobile for use. It is therefore tried by the inventor to develop an improved collapsible spiral-tube escape way to eliminate the drawbacks existing in the currently available escape apparatus.
A primary object of the present invention is to provide a collapsible spiral-tube escape way formed from a plurality of serially connected spiral-tube units separately supported on tube-supporting frames via vertical and horizontal suspension lines. The spiral-tube units are automatically extended and collapsed when the tube-supporting frames are moved into an operating and a standby position, respectively. The tube-supporting frames in the standby position are either fully elevated to stack on a roof of a building or separately pivotally lifted to flatly attach to outside of exits of the building. In an emergency, the tube-supporting frames are either vertically lowered to connect to the exits or pivotally tilted down to a horizontal position in front of the exits. In either case, users at different floors could easily enter into the spiral-tube escape supported and pulled open by the tube-supporting frames via the exits of the building and slide all the way down to the ground. The collapsible spiral-tube escape way of the present invention in the standby position is collapsed to occupy only very limited space and is ready for use in an emergency to ensure life safety of users in the building.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a collapsible spiral-tube escape way having a plurality of spiral-tube units made of fireproof and highly rigid fabrics and suspension lines made of fireproof ropes, so that the whole collapsible spiral-tube escape way is light and collapsible. All the parts and/or accessories for forming the collapsible spiral-tube escape way could be standardized and massively produced, and the whole escape way could be assembled from these standardized parts at the construction site without any limitation in its overall length. That is, the collapsible spiral-tube escape way of the present invention could be used for buildings of any height and could be very quickly and easily installed. Moreover, the spiral tube provides a closed escape way in which users would not fear when moving down from a high place.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a collapsible spiral-tube escape way that are assembled from a plurality of spiral-tube units and corresponding hardware, and could therefore be partially replaced and repaired in case of any damage to always maintain the escape way in a normal condition for use.